Global heating is already estimated to be taking one life every minute, with the toll likely to rise unless emissions fall rapidly.

I think it’s going to be a while. We’re still committed to the infinite growth paradigm and infinite growth requires infinite energy.

There’s debate about the feasibility of green growth, but the fact is green energy is already helping to fuel growth. It’s a relatively small percentage of the overall energy mix now, but green energy will grow, and so will fossil fuel energy. We’ll have green growth and fossil fuel growth, and probably nuclear growth, too. As long as we keep growing, we’ll need it all.

The RVs are a symptom. Going after the symptom doesn’t necessarily do anything to address the underlying issue. But the underlying issue is systemic, which makes it very difficult to fix.

Real estate is the primary source of wealth for most people in the US. To bring down housing costs would necessarily mean bringing down home values, leading to many people potentially losing a considerable amount of their personal net worth. And I’m not talking about billionaires, or even necessarily millionaires. I’m talking mostly about people whose net worth is in the hundreds of thousands, with the vast majority of that coming from any equity they might have in their home.

There’s no viable solution for fixing this that doesn’t result in those people losing at least some net worth, at least initially. Not that I can see, anyway. We need to do it anyway, but I understand why those people aren’t enthusiastic about it.

I think “renewable” has become a buzz word that people don’t think critically about, so a lot of folks don’t understand how important it is for an energy source to be renewable.

Once you’ve pumped an oil well dry, it stays dry. It doesn’t refill with oil, at least not on human timescales. But the sunlight that solar panels used to generate electricity today will be replaced with new sunlight tomorrow. And that daily renewal of sunlight will continue for many, many millions of years.

It seems so obvious to me.

This is the first I’m hearing about this “anti-weaponization fund.” This country is so cooked.

The state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission fired biologist Brittney Brown in September after she reposted a meme on her personal Instagram account that claimed Kirk wouldn’t care about children being shot in their classrooms.

I mean, I’m sure he didn’t care.

With more dollars on the market chasing the same amount of goods (e.g. oil) the price of everything denominated in dollars would shoot through the roof.

Yeah, but that’s what I’ve never quite understood: how would it put more dollars on the market than there was always going to be anyway? I mean, the idea was always to pay back these bond holders. Weren’t the dollars that will be needed to pay back bond holders going to have to be created at some point regardless?

The total Federal debt is $39 trillion, but there’s only something like $20 trillion actually in existence, if I’m not mistaken. Even if we collected every single existing dollar out there through taxes, we’d still have a shortfall of almost $20 trillion.

It does feel like flushing money down the toilet, doesn’t it? Then again, I’m not a Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security recipient, nor am I a member of the armed forces. They might disagree.

But why shouldn’t I want to get something for my money? If I pay Medicare taxes, why shouldn’t I get Medicare benefits, for instance?

This is what conservatives want: medicine based on various opinions at the state local level so that you can’t know what is true.

Yeah, but not all states are going to just pull nonsense out of the air to base their policies on. Many states, like the ones you mentioned: California, Oregon and Washington will at least try to establish policies informed by experts.

States must set their own guidelines. The Federal government has become unreliable so we shouldn’t rely on it.

We’re fucked because the only solution is raise taxes and/or cut spending, and neither are politically feasible.

We could try printing our way out of it, but people will swear up and down that would cause runaway inflation. Maybe it would, but it’s always made we wonder. I mean, I’m not talking about printing money and sending everyone in America a check. I’m talking about printing money and using it to pay bond holders. Obviously not all at once, not all bonds come due at the same time. And, in theory, wouldn’t that cause bond yields to go down? If treasuries were essentially guaranteed investments (and weren’t they kind of seen that way for a very long time, up until recently?), yields would drop and the cost of borrowing for the Federal government would go down. Right? In theory, anyway. I’m sure I’m missing something, so please someone enlighten me.

Public interest!? What are we, communists? It’s all about private profit. That’s how you know you live in a free country. True Freedom™ means prioritizing the maximization of profits for a relatively small number of owners and executives, over public interest, the environment, and even basic human decency and well being in general.

We’re gonna have to fight these bozos at some point, aren’t we…

I mean, I don’t really care if someone works honestly and gets more. Want to do OT and buy a jet ski? Fine, whatever. Not my preferred avenue but you do you.

Yeah, but that’s the thing: when the priority is get rich so you can buy lots of shit, morality becomes a secondary consideration, if it’s a consideration at all. Morality, empathy and ethics should be the standard, with exceptional wealth and consumption being the exception, rather than exorbitant wealth and consumption being the goal and morality and empathy being fringe concepts.

It’s not just that some people work a few extra hours to earn a jet ski, it’s that our culture conditions us to believe that the money and the things are what people should be primarily striving for, and that everything else is unimportant.

That is unfortunate. I guess there’s no place for people like me.

I’ve thought about it. And it’s not just Trump. I see Trump more as a symptom of the problem, not the problem himself.

The thing is, my values just don’t align with many, if not most other Americans. A lot of Americans are fairly money obsessed. Many Americans are greedy and selfish. There seems to be a culture of getting rich anyway you can, even if it is through unethical means.

I also think many Americans are hyper consumers. The idea seems to be to work and hustle and grind intensely, to make as much money as possible so that you can spend that money conspicuously. Work hard, spend hard, party hard. Indulge, indulge, indulge. Money and indulgence and consumption supersedes relationships and any kind of social connection.

And somehow, for some this money obsessed consumerism runs concurrently with a bizarre form of Christianity, even though those two things seem to be at odds with one another. Don’t get me wrong, the greed and the consumerism are by no means restricted only to Christian Americans. There are plenty of secular or atheist Americans who are plenty greedy, too. It just seems to be in the DNA of the nation. Everything’s money and money is everything.

Americans will say, “there’s nothing wrong with working hard to support your family,” but it’s not just supporting your family, it’s about making enough money to buy a massive house and fill it with stuff, and fill your extra large garage with big, expensive cars and trucks, and all sorts of “toys,” like boats and jet skis and four wheelers, and campers/RVs. And no matter how much stuff you have, it’s never enough. You always need more, or better stuff. That goes way, way beyond just “supporting your family.”

Frankly, I’m exhausted by it. I tried living that way for a lot of years but I don’t have the energy anymore.

It’s pretty obvious. But I don’t necessarily have a solution. It’s a hard, hard problem to solve.

Israel is not going to stop until all the territory of British Mandate Palestine is theirs, and all non Jews are removed from it, one way or another. As an American, it’s absolutely infuriating that my government is so committed to helping them do it.